Damage to golf greens, as well as to the wooded floors and carpets of golf clubhouses, caused by golfers wearing athletic shoes with metal spikes is a well-known phenomenon. The need for improved traction on turf surfaces must be tempered with the adverse affect that large metal spikes have upon the turf of golf courses, especially the putting green surface. The protruding metal spike common to golf shoes has systematically been replaced by alternative spike and traction cleats which provide less damage to golf courses. In fact, many golf courses have completely banned the use of metal spikes. Besides the aggravation that golfers feel when having to putt through spike marks left on the putting surface, metal spikes affect groundskeepers who at the end of the day must spend numerous hours repairing the putting greens.
In response to alleviating the foregoing problems which are intrinsic to metallic spikes, shoe manufacturers are providing golf shoes having non-metallic cleats (plastic spikes). The need for improved traction on turf surfaces, while playing golf, is a major concern, however, it is often perceived by many users that plastic cleats are less proficient than metal spikes in ground gripping ability, thus there is a great need for a plastic cleat with superior traction, not just on a golf course, but safety traction on non-grass and non-sand terrain, such as steps, asphalt, tile oak and other types of flooring which golfers have to transverse. Plastic cleats generally have protrusions which are shorter than conventional metallic spikes and since such cleats absorb shocks from hard surfaces to a certain degree, they thereby provide wearers with improved comfort. Plastic cleats also provide improved stability because they are shorter and have a larger number of contact points than shoe soles with conventional metallic spikes. However, as previously stated, such conventional plastic cleats do not generally provide as good grip or bite on grass or turf as metallic spikes do, and providing good grip on grass is what is expected of cleats and spikes. Conventional plastic cleats especially fail against metal spikes in providing grip on wet grass, withered grass or slopes. The plastic cleats are known to be far more difficult to keep clean, which is a concern of golfers playing in adverse weather conditions. Some manufacturer's recognize this problem and supply special cleaning tools for keeping the spikes clean of debris.
The present invention presents an improved plastic cleat that provides a solution for these problems.